Dreaming of Harlem

I’ve heard of the name Langston Hughes before but have never read anything of his. Today, in Brandon’s (Humans of New York) latest posts, his subject Mo spoke about this poem called Harlem, which was about deferred dreams.

Hughes wrote it as part of a collection of poems called Montage of a Dream Deferred and after reading Harlem, I feel like getting the book…

Harlem

By Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?

      Does it dry up
      like a raisin in the sun?
      Or fester like a sore—
      And then run?
      Does it stink like rotten meat?
      Or crust and sugar over—
      like a syrupy sweet?

      Maybe it just sags
      like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

I had a vision of love…

… in 3D!

A blending sponge is already three-dimensional, no? And a lip pouting tool? I’m barely able to handle BB/CC cream with the rest of the stuff women put on their faces, let alone this kind of Technology.

Write me one?

I found this on Thought Catalog:

I believe that when men and women receive a love letter it is the only situation in which they make an effort to read better than they usually do. When they read a love letter, they read for all they are worth. They read every word more than once; they read between the lines and margins; they read the whole in terms of their parts, and each part in terms of the whole. They are sensitive to context and ambiguity and feel the weight of sentences. They may even take the punctuation seriously.

The writer has written almost 400 letters to strangers this year alone.  Talk about being prolific.  It started after a bout of loneliness following his college graduation.

– – –

I’d written loads of letters since I was 14.  Being a boarder, it was the cheaper alternative to long distance phone calls.  Then I went to Japan and most of my friends were either here or in other parts of the world, which meant more letters.  Until email started to become a viable mode of communication that is.

I think it’s really difficult to write a good letter now, because the process of putting thoughts to paper has been replaced by too many ‘instants’.  SMS, BBM, other messaging platforms and Twitter.  All so-called real time communication, rapid and in your face.

I’d still love to receive a letter, though.

 

Speak softly, please

A self-described introvert, it took Susan Cain seven years to write a book, and then spent a year learning the ways of public speaking since her job now is to promote said book.

I love how she described her family’s favourite pastime, and her grandfather’s apartment.  Reading and writing.  Two things I’ve neglected this past year…

Simply awesome

I saw Frank Warren live in March 2010 in St. Louis. It’s still amazing to see him addressing a crowd, and he was on TED.